Aton

“ Probably they would have taken stronger measures to resist this foreign god had it not been for the fact that Atum of Heliopolis, an ancient god of Egypt, was on the one hand closely akin to Ra, the associated deity with Amon, and on the other hand to Aton of Syria. Thus Aton might be regarded merely as another name for Ra or Amon-Ra; but the danger to the old régime lay in the fact that with the worship of Aton there went a certain amount of free-thought. The sun and its warm rays were the heritage of all mankind ”

“ The Creator has gone to rest and the world is mute.
But the trumpet was waking the sleepers as the call of the Lord will one day wake the dead. Old men and children, slaves and free, rich and poor, foreigners and Egyptians, were all running to greet the newborn sun, the god Aton.
Dio was roused by the sound of the trumpet in the small chapel of Aton's temple where she slept that night with the girl singers, musicians and dancers who were to accompany her in her dance before the king.
"The trumpets call, the trumpets! Get up, girls! The sun is born, rejoice!" ”

“ And to the more serious-minded, such as Horemheb seems to have been, the movement must have appealed in its imperial aspect. The new god Aton was largely worshipped in Syria, and it seems evident that Akhnaton had hoped to bind together the heterogeneous nations of the empire by a bond of common worship. The Asiatics were not disposed to worship Amon, but Aton appealed to them as much as any god, and Horemheb must have seen great possibilities in a common religion. ”

“ Perhaps we should conclude that Akhenaton chose to devote himself to religious matters, and that the chaos in Asia was a result of neglect rather than self-conscious policy.
The Amarna tomb inscriptions give extravagant praise to Aton and his son, the Pharaoh:
How prosperous is he who hears thy doctrine of life and is sated with beholding thee, and unceasingly his eyes look upon Aton every day. ”

“ The new Pharaoh's first move, under the guidance of Tiy, was to proclaim Aton the only true god, and to name himself high priest of that deity. He then began to build a temple dedicated to Aton at Karnak; but it must have been distasteful [195] to observe how overshadowed and dwarfed was this new temple by the mighty buildings in honour of the older gods which stood there. Moreover, there must have been very serious opposition to the new religion in Thebes, where Amon had ruled for so many centuries unchallenged. ”

“ The back of the throne pictures the king and his wife under the sun disk (Aton) .
Tutankhamon and His God. A black granite statue depicts the god Amon (large figure) with Pharaoh Tutankhamon, who renounced the Aton faith of Akhenaton and returned to Thebes, the center of the Amon priesthood.
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The temples of the gods and goddesses ... had gone to pieces. Their shrines had become desolate and had become overgrown mounds.... The land was topsy turvy and the gods turned their backs upon this land. If one prayed to a god to seek counsel from him, he would never come (at all) . ”

“ This functionary was a certain Marirl, upon whom the king showered his favours, and he was for some time the chief authority in the State after the Pharaoh himself. Atonû was represented sometimes by the ordinary figure of Horus,* sometimes by the solar disk, but a disk whose rays were prolonged towards the earth, like so many arms ready to lay hold with their little hands of the offerings of the faithful, or to distribute to mortals the crux ansata, the symbol of life. The other gods, except Amon, were sharers with humanity in his benefits. ”

“ Her Eaton was a sedate gentleman who made cryptic remarks to her at parties and was known to be exceedingly conservative in social matters. Amidon, she surmised, was far too keen to subject himself unwillingly to Eaton’s caustic humor, nor was Eaton a man to [18] trouble himself with any one unless he received an adequate return. ”

“ For Anton's creed was, "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you," and he had loved his neighbor with the great forest love of man for man. His neighbor was weak, and Anton was strong with the strength of a bull, so that when the hour came, it was Anton who had measured out vengeance. When Kent brought Anton in, the giant had laughed first at the littleness of his cell, then at the unsuspected strength of it, and after that he had laughed and sung great, roaring songs every day of the brief tenure of life that was given him. ”

“ Now he dwelt alone in a house which was by the side of the village, for as yet there were no monasteries for ascetics in Egypt, and among the monks there was no man who had any knowledge of the inner desert; and every one who wished to have a care for his soul used to seek out an habitation of this kind. Saint Anthony did not betake himself to the mountain at a great distance from the village, but only at a sufficient distance therefrom, so that he might be somewhat apart from the habitation of men. ”

“ An-Ath, whose temple in Canaan was styled Beth-Anath, is found often reversed, and styled Ath-An; whence came Athana, and Αθηνα of the Greeks. Anath signified the fountain of light, and was abbreviated Nath and Neith by the Egyptians. They worshipped under this title a divine emanation, supposed to be the Goddess of Wisdom. The Athenians, who came from Sais in Egypt, were denominated from this Deity, whom they expressed Ath-An, or Αθηνη, after the Ionian manner. Της πολεως (Σαϊτων) Θεος αρχηγος εστιν, Αιγυπτιστι μεν τ' ουνομα Νηϊθ, Ἑλληνιστι δε, ὡς ὁ εκεινων λογος, Αθηνα. ”

“ Atanta fell to his knees and his trembling hand etched out the sign of the cross in the snow. Surely this must be a sign. The god had come out of the sky and fallen in the path before him—forbidding him to go into the lowlands. He knew he must pray and ask forgiveness but for many moments he was too frightened to pray, and when the fear subsided, he was too proud. Why should he pray to a god who would let his people starve? ”

“ My four remaining years then, at Eton, formed, indeed, a dream of happiness.
When not otherwise particularly engaged, it was my delight, on the instant of coming out of school, or church, to fix my eyes on some distant object, and to start off for it, merely, I suppose, because it was out of bounds. Being constantly in the habit of this, I became acquainted with the localities of the neighbourhood, perhaps more accurately than any other boy at Eton. The two most distant points I ever reached, were Staines and the race-course at Ascot Heath. These excursions I ever undertook in solitude. ”

“ Anthony did not reply. He turned to the monks of Antinoë those eyes whose looks no man could sustain. He gazed for a long time at Paul, called the Fool; then he made a sign to him to approach. And, as all were astonished that the saint should address himself to a man who was not in his senses, Anthony said —
"God has granted to him more grace than to any of you. Lift thy eyes, my son Paul, and tell me what thou seest in heaven." ”

“ It is I who have taken upon myself to lead many astray, and I fight against every man, and I am against righteousness, and I am, even as the Prophet called me, the ‘spirit of fornication’ (Hosea 4:12) , for through me have gone astray all those who have stumbled. It is I who have injured thee on several occasions, and thou hast been held in contempt by me in everything.”
And the blessed Anthony gave thanks unto the Lord, and gained great encouragement, and said, “What power thinkest thou that thou hast in thee, O Enemy, to resist the might of the Cross? ”

“ Evidence of Aten's early position in the pantheon is to be found in the Book of the Dead, where Ra is addressed thus: "O thou beautiful being, thou dost renew thyself and make [Pg 161] thyself young again under the form of Aten." "Thou turnest thy face toward the underworld, and thou makest the earth to shine like fine copper. The dead rise up to see thee, they breathe the air and they look upon thy face when Aten shineth in the horizon." ”

“ For, if it be true of schoolboys that “thought would destroy their paradise”—that is, the thought merely of the personal ailments of mature age—how much more disturbing would be the contemplation of the vast social wrongs that fill the world with suffering! Of such sombre thought Eton knew nothing, but basked content in the warmth of her own supreme self-satisfaction; and the Eton life was probably the most enjoyable of all hitherto invented forms of heedless existence. ”

“ You want me to explain why it is that I always refer to your pupil as 'poor Anton!' It is truly because I pity him,—you most bewitching of women! My own blessed ownership of you makes my heart gentle to the rest of men—even including lowly Tyrolean peasants, who are, by circumstances, quite removed from you. And I wondered if it were only the dear opal ring which he looked at so hungrily that day. Do not forget that it is far less beautiful than the hand which wears it. In short, my own child, I would wish to put you a little on your guard—for this poor Anton's sake! ”

“ Anthony asked—
“Sweet child, what else seest thou?”
Paul gazed vacantly from the zenith to the nadir, and from west to east, when suddenly his eyes fell on the Abbot of Antinoe. His face grew pale with a holy terror, and his eyeballs reflected invisible flames.
“I see,” he murmured, “three demons, who, full of joy, prepare to seize that man. One of them is like unto a tower, one to a woman, and one to a mage. All three bear their name, marked with red-hot iron; the first on the forehead, the second on the belly, the third on the breast, and those names are—Pride, Lust, and Doubt. ”

“ For he had brought Anton to this same cell—Anton, the big Frenchman, with his black hair, his black beard, and his great, rolling laugh that even in the days when he was waiting for death had rattled the paper-weights on Kedsty's desk.
Anton rose up like a god before Kent now. He had killed a man, and like a brave man he had not denied it. With a heart in his great body as gentle as a girl's, Anton had taken pride in the killing. ”

“ Looking up at the great building before him, so firm and secure, in the moonlight, a thought flashed into his mind. If any man could help them, it was his principal. His keen eye would be able to unravel all the dark secrets in which the baron was entangled, and his iron strength of will would crush the villains who held the unfortunate nobleman in their power. And then he had a noble nature; he always decided on the right, without an effort or a struggle. Anton looked at the first floor. ”

“ No sooner were her interviews with Numerian concluded than the promptings of that nature within us, which artifice may warp but can never destroy, lured her into a forgetfulness of all that she had heard and a longing for much that was forbidden. We live, in this existence, but by the companionship of some sympathy, aspiration, or pursuit, which serves us as our habitual refuge from the tribulations we inherit from the outer world. The same feeling which led Antonina in her childhood to beg for a flower-garden, in her girlhood induced her to gain possession of a lute. ”

“ Speak to me, then, in English, if you please, monsieur.”
“My lord,” replied Athos, “I have frequently seen men in certain circumstances have sufficient command over themselves not to reply to a question put to them in a language they understood. The fisherman is perhaps more learned than we believe him to be. Send him away, my lord, I beg you.”
“Decidedly,” said Monk, “he wishes to have me alone in this vault. Never mind, we shall go through with it; one man is as good as another man; and we are alone. ”

“ At Eton he formed one of his romantic attachments for a youth of his own age. He seems now, as ever after, to have felt the yearning for perfect sympathy in some human being; as one idol fell short of his self-formed ideal, he sought for another. This was not the nature to be trained by bullying and flogging, though sympathy and reason would never find him irresponsive. ”

“ Hermanric's downcast eyes and melancholy, unchanging expressions betrayed the gloomy abstraction in which he was absorbed. With one hand clasped in his, and the other resting with her head on his shoulder, Antonina listened attentively to the alternate rising and falling of the wind. Her beauty had grown fresher and more woman-like during her sojourn at the farm-house. Cheerfulness and hope seemed to have gained at length all the share in her being assigned to them by nature at her birth. ”

“ I cried earnestly, for I felt pained at the light way in which she spoke of poor Mary.
“I am sure she is, Antony,” said Miss Carr, looking at me very earnestly; and then I began to talk of Mr Hallett, and how kind and firm he had been.
To my surprise, she stopped me, her voice sounding almost harsh as she said quietly:
“You are learning through a rough school, Antony, and are fast losing your homelike ways, and childlike—well—innocence; but you are still very impressionable, and ready to take people for what they seem. Antony, my boy, you will make many enemies as well as friends. ”

“ At last, unable to endure any longer the crowds of those who visited the saint because of various afflictions or the assaults of demons, and deeming it a strange anomaly that he should have to bear in the desert the crowds of the cities, he thought it was better for him to begin as Antony had begun. Said he: “Antony is reaping the reward of victory like a hero who has proved his bravery. ”